This shit is no worse then most of the stuff JER churned out in his first run. Was it better executed then? Yes. Somehow he managed to make Bo and Hope spending years apart when it all could've been solved by talking come off exciting. Same goes for John and Marlena. However, these same sort of stupid misunderstandings that could easily be solved by talking things out coming between couples and having something revealed only for it not to be by backtracking for some reason happened all through his first run and second and were contrived BS. Was Days entertaining? Yes. But the more and more I watch JER's stuff over the more I see through the illusion and I'm not just talking about his second run. His runs had their moments but he had to rely on character stupidity to make all his stories work.

Perhaps people's tastes change but it does bother me when stories like this were praised under another writer and now get criticized. If you want to criticize and point out the stories are lacking, that is fine. I acknowledge the stories could be better and they aren't being executed as well but the premise of the stories are no worse then what many praised under JER.